Jesus Is an Anarchist

6. On
Paul and Romans 13

and
Titus 3:1

It is often claimed
that Christians are required to submit to government, as this is
supposedly what Paul commanded that we are supposed to do in Romans 13.
Thus:

Romans 13:1-7: Let
every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no
authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by
God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God,
and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not
a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the
authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he
is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he
does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to
execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject,
not only because of wrath but also for conscience' sake. For because of
this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending
continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes
to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor
to whom honor.

But in actual fact
Paul never does tell us in above excerpt from Romans 13 to submit to
government! – at least certainly not as they have existed on Earth and are
operated by men.

In fact, Paul would be
an outright, boldfaced hypocrite were he to command anyone to do such a
thing: for Paul himself did not submit to government, and if he had then
he would not even have been alive to be able to write Romans 13.

For Paul himself
disobeyed government, and it is a good thing that he did as we would not
even know of a Paul in the Bible had he not disobeyed government. As when
Paul was still only known as Saul he escaped from the city of Damascus as
he knew that the governor of that city, acting under the authority of
Aretas the king, was coming with a garrison to arrest him in order that he
be executed.

This was right after
Saul's conversion to Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. The Jews in
Damascus, hearing of Sauls conversion, plotted to kill him as a traitor to
their cause in persecuting the Christians. Saul was let out of a window in
the wall of Damascus under cover of night by some fellow disciples in
Christ (see Acts 9:23-25).

In none of Paul's
later writings does he divest himself, or disassociate himself, from these
actions that he took in knowingly and purposely disobeying government: in
fact, this very event is one of the things that he later cites in
demonstration of his unwavering commitment to Christ (see 2 Cor.
12:22-33)!

Indeed, ever since
Paul's conversion to Jesus Christ, he spent the rest of his entire life in
rebellion against mortal governments, and would at last – just as with
Jesus before him – be executed by government, in this case by having his
head chopped off.

Paul was continuously
in and out of prisons throughout his entire ministry for preaching the
gospel of Christ; he was lashed with stripes 39 times by the "authorities"
for preaching Christ; he was beaten with rods by the "authorities" for
preaching Christ; and none of these rebellions of his did he ever disavow:
indeed he cited them all as evidence of his commitment to Jesus (again,
see 2 Cor. 12:22-33)!

But even more
importantly, if Paul is saying in Romans 13 what many people have said he
meant, i.e., that people should obey mortal, Earthly governments, then it
is questionable whether Paul could even be a genuine Christian.

For as was pointed out
above, Jesus would not even have existed as we know of today had it not
been for Joseph and Mary intentionally disobeying king Herod the Great and
escaping from his reach when they knew that Herod desired to destroy baby
Jesus (see Matt. 2:13,14).

Thus, if indeed Paul
meant in Romans 13 that we are to obey Earthly governments then this would
mean that Paul would rather have Joseph and Mary obey king Herod the Great
and turn baby Jesus over to be killed.

So what in the world
is going on here with Paul and Romans 13? Is Paul a hypocrite? Is Paul
being contradictory? Actually, No to both. Once again, as with Jesus's
answer to the question on taxes, this is another ingenious case of
rhetorical misdirection.

Paul was counting on
the fact that most people who would be hostile to the Christian church –
the Roman "authorities" in particular – would, upon reading Romans 13,
naturally interpret it from the point of view of legal positivism: i.e.,
that such people would take for granted that the "governing authorities"
and "rulers" spoken of must refer to the men who operate the governments
on Earth.

But never does Paul
anywhere say that this is so! (Legal positivism is the doctrine that
whichever gang is best able to overpower others with arms and might and
thereby subjugate the populace and who then proceed to proclaim themselves
the "authority" are on that account the rightful "Authority.")

But before proceeding
with the above analysis, what would the motive be for Paul to include such
rhetorical misdirection in his letter to the people at the church of Rome?
In answering this, it must be remembered that just as with Jesus, Paul was
not free to say just anything that he wanted.

The early Christians
were a persecuted minority under the close surveillance of the Roman
government as a possible threat to its power. Here is Biblical proof of
this assertion written by Paul himself:

Galatians 2:4,5: And
this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in
by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they
might bring us into bondage), to whom we did not yield submission even for
an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

Paul never intended
that his letter to the Roman church be kept secret, and he knew that it
would be copied and distributed amongst the populace, and thus inevitably
it would fall into the hands of the Roman government, especially
considering that this letter was going directly into the belly of the
beast itself: the city of Rome.

Thus by including this
in the letter to the church at Rome he would help put at ease the fears of
the Roman government so that the persecution of the Christians would not
be as severe and so that the more important task of the Church, that of
saving people's souls, could more easily continue unimpeded.

But Paul wrote it in
such a way that a truly knowledgeable Christian at the time would have no
doubt as to what was actually meant.

The Church leaders at
the time would have known that Paul obviously couldn't have meant the
people who control the mortal governments as they exist on Earth when he
referred to the "governing authorities" and "rulers" in Romans 13, for
that would have made Paul a shameless hypocrite and also meant that he
would desire that baby Jesus had been killed (for surely the histories of
Paul and Jesus's lives would have been fresh on their minds).

The only answer that
can make any sense of this seeming riddle is that one doesn't actually
become a true "governing authority" or "ruler" simply because one has
managed by way of deception, terror, murder and might to subjugate a
certain population and then proceed to thereby proclaim oneself the "King"
or the "Authority" or the "Ruler."

Instead, what Paul is
saying is that the only true and real authorities are only those that God
appoints, i.e., one cannot become a real authority or ruler in the eyes of
God simply because through force of arms one has managed to subjugate a
population and then proclaim oneself the potentate.

Thus, by saying this
Paul was actually rebuking the supposed authority of the mortal
governments as they exist on Earth and are operated by men!

"Let every soul be
subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except
from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God." (Rom.
13:1.) leaves wide open the possibility that those who control the mortal
governments on Earth are not true authorities as appointed by God.

The fallacy most
people make when encountering a statement such as this is to unthinkingly
and automatically assume that Paul must be referring to the people in
control of the mortal governments that exist on Earth – for after all,
don't these people who run these Earthly governments call themselves the
"governing authorities"? Do they not teach their subjects from birth that
they are the "rulers" and the "authorities"?

But when we factor in
the life history of both Jesus and Paul, then it can leave no room for
doubt: Paul most certainly could not have been referring in Romans 13 to
the people who control the mortal governments as they exist on Earth –
otherwise Paul would be an outright hypocrite as well as an advocate of
deicide against baby Jesus. Indeed, God Himself directly confirms this
very thing:

Hosea 8:4: "They set
up kings, but not by Me; They made princes, but I did not acknowledge
them."

But, some may inquire,
what about Paul telling us to pay taxes in Romans 13:6-7? Thus:

Romans 13:6,7: For
because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending
continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes
to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor
to whom honor.

But does Paul really
tell us to pay taxes here? Again, just as with Jesus, nowhere does Paul
actually tell anyone to pay any taxes!

Paul continues with
the rhetorical misdirection that he started in the beginning of Romans 13,
knowing – just as Jesus knew before him – that those who would be hostile
to the Christian church would automatically assume what they are
predisposed to assume: i.e., that the taxes and customs "due" are due to
those in control of the governments who levy them.

But here Paul was
being wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, as Paul never said any
such thing. For when Paul says "Render therefore to all their due: taxes
to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs" this just begs the
question: to whom are taxes and customs due?

The answer to which
could quite possibly be "No one." And this is precisely how Paul proceeds
to answer his own question-begging statement, in Romans 13:8-10:

Owe no one anything
except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the
law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not
murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not bear false witness," "You
shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up
in this saying, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love
does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

So there we have it in
no uncertain terms: Owe no one anything except to love one another! Yet
since when have taxes ever had the slightest thing to do with love?

As was explained
above, all mortal governments throughout history steal and extort wealth
from their subjects which they call "taxes," yet at the same time
governments make it illegal for their subjects to steal from each other or
from the government.

Thus in taxes we see
that historically all governments do to their subjects what they outlaw
their subjects to do to them. Thus, all Earthly, mortal governments, by
levying taxes, break the Golden Rule which Jesus commanded everyone as the
supreme law.

In the earlier
discussion on Jesus and taxes we learned that when Jesus said "Give on to
Caesar that which is Caesar's and give unto the Lord that which is the
Lord's" he was, in effect, actually saying that one need not give anything
to Caesar: as nothing is rightly his, considering that everything that
Caesar has, has been taken by theft and extortion.

And what of Paul
writing in Titus 3:1: "Remind them to be subject to rulers and
authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work"? As was clearly
demonstrated above, Paul was referring to the true higher authorities as
recognized by God, not to the diabolical, Satanic, mortal governments as
they have existed on Earth – as Paul spent his entire ministry in
rebellion against the Earth-bound, mortal "authorities," and was at last
put to death by them. (For other cases of righteous disobedience to
government in the Bible, see Exo. 1:15-2:3; 1 Sam. 19:10-18; Esther 4:16;
Dan. 3:12-18; 6:10; Matt. 2:12-13; Acts 5:29; 9:25; 17:6-8; 2 Cor.
11:32,33.)

And as further proof
of this, consider Paul's advice to Christians as regarding being judged by
what the government considers the "authority":

1 Corinthians 6:1-8:
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the
unrighteous, and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints
will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you
unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall
judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? If then you
have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint
those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? I say this to your
shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who
will be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goes to law
against brother, and that before unbelievers! Now therefore, it is already
an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do
you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be
cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to
your brethren!

Paul said that the
government judges "are least esteemed by the church to judge"! It is clear
that he considered them to be no authority at all!

But moreover, even
Jesus didn't consider the Earthly, mortal "rulers" to be true rulers and
authorities! Thus:

Mark 10:42-45: But
Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, "You know that those who
are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great
ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but
whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And
whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the Son
of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a
ransom for many."

By saying this Jesus
was in fact rebuking the supposed "authority" of the Earthly "rulers"!
Just because mortals on Earth may consider someone to be an "authority"
and "ruler" does not mean that God considers them to be so!